Happy Australia Day

[Smid]

From Down Under, happy Australia Day everybody!

Australia Day is the 26th of January and celebrates the date the First Fleet arrived in Australia (and thus the establishment of european settlement).

Happy 221st Birthday, Australia!

[Hash]

Happy Australia Day!

[Platypus]

Happy Hottest 100 Day!

(I choose to ignore the Invasion Day/Australia Day debate. I'm proudly Australian, deeply ashamed of the indigenous history of our Commonwealth, and a music fan )

I'm hosting a BBQ Beachfest. Tunes, Chops and Sand=Australia.

[Matt Damon™]

GET A BETTER FLAG AUSTRALIA

[k-onmmunist]

GET A BETTER FLAG AUSTRALIA

Their current flag is good enough.

[Matt Damon™]

Nope. It's unoriginal and blatantly plaigerizing Britain. Britain should send the RN and RAF to shell canberra for this egregious act of theft.

[Rin-chan]

Happy Australian Day!! XD  You guys have such awesome accents

Rin-chan

[paul718]

Nope. It's unoriginal and blatantly plaigerizing Britain. Britain should send the RN and RAF to shell canberra for this egregious act of theft.

Like the birthplace of our dear leader?

[Matt Damon™]

Of course!

[Smid]

GET A BETTER FLAG AUSTRALIA

Our flag reveals our history and our place in the world. The Southern Cross is a constellation unique to the Southern Hemisphere and features on both the Australian and New Zealand flags. Additionally, the Southern Cross played an important role in many of our indiginous dreamtime stories. The Union Jack reveals that we were settled by the British, that we are still a part of the British Commonwealth and that our system of government, our courts and much of our way of life is based on British cultural traditions. The Federation Star below the Union Jack has seven points - one for each of our six states, and an additional point to represent our territories. It reminds us that we were several separate colonies who came together in federation to become a single nation.

In 1901, the colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia federated into one single nation (there were two referendum held - in the first one, New Zealand voted in favour of federating but Western Australia voted against, in the second New Zealand voted against federating but Western Australia voted in favour). Following federation, it was decided that the new nation needed its own flag. A national competition was announced on 29 April 1901. 32,823 men, women and children entered the competition. The entries were numbered, to prevent the judges from being influenced by some of the various powerful people who had also submitted entries. There were many different entries, including one depicting various Australian native animals playing cricket with a winged cricket ball.

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On that day, the Australian flag was flown for the first time.

There was a total of 200 pounds contributed as winning prize money, and each of the five winners received forty pounds each. I think from memory that was about the average annual wage at the time.

In 1996, the Governor General, Sir William Deane, proclaimed the third of September each year to be Australian National Flag Day to commemorate the date on which it was first flown. I have actually seen and handled the flag that flew over the Australian Parliament on the centenary of the date the flag was first flown - 3 September 2001. The flag that flies over the Parliament is roughly the size of a London double decker bus, or the size of about half a tennis court.

I have a mate about to come over for beer and sausages, so I'll leave you with a few links before I go:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=jD3SkTyXzcE&feature=related (The Seekers' version of "I am, you are, we are Australian")
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=hbGuqmaDgLA&feature=related (The Qantas version of "I Still Call Australia Home")
http://www.abpa.org.au/Bush_Poetry/Traditional_Poetry/my_country.html (Dorothy McKellar's "My Country" - a poem about Australia)
http://uqconnect.net/~zzdmcana/Man_From_Snowy_River_Arena_Spectacular/snowy_river_poem.html (Patterson's "Man from Snowy River")

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Happy Australia day to all of our Australian members.

[JSojourner]

God bless one of the greatest countries in the world...home of some of the nicest people ever.

I would visit, but I have an unshakeable and irrational fear of wallabies.  I think they are following me.

[Smid]

God bless one of the greatest countries in the world...home of some of the nicest people ever.

I would visit, but I have an unshakeable and irrational fear of wallabies.  I think they are following me.

Fearing the Australian Rugby Union team is completely irrational - they might look big and tough, but in match after match the Kiwis have shown they're really just lambs. If you ever do come visit with your family, let me know, I'd love to show you around a few places!

Something I forgot to mention before, but I believe we're the fifth oldest continuous democracy, behind (I think, and not necessarily in the correct order) Sweden, Britain, US, Canada and Switzerland.

[Platypus]

Well, that depends if you consider the UK to be a continuous democracy. WW2 and all that.

[DownWithTheLeft]

Question:

I saw on the Aussie Open that one player hurt her wrist and they said she couldn't get x-rays because the hospital was closed?  How do the fuck does a hosptial close?

[Smid]

Question:

I saw on the Aussie Open that one player hurt her wrist and they said she couldn't get x-rays because the hospital was closed?  How do the fuck does a hosptial close?

I'll look into this for you (I have no interest in tennis, so I haven't been watching) but my glib response would be: because we have an incompetent health minister serving in an incompetent government.

I'm assuming the tennis player is Zheng Jie, from what I'm finding on Google, but I'm not finding any reference to the hospital being closed.

[Platypus]

Probably means that:

1. Due to the statewide blackout which caused a massive rush on hospitals, non-emergency procedures were being delayed;

2. The medical centre at the AO was closed;

3. The hospital's X-Ray machine was not in use. That said, there are about 10 hospitals within two kilometers of the tennis center, so that's pretty easily resolved.

Or none of the above.